


The Brightest Star

by susiephalange



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: 1920s, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Female!Reader - Freeform, Fluff, Ilvermorny, Magic, Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Spoilers, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:26:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiephalange/pseuds/susiephalange
Summary: Napoleon Bonaparte might have said thatthere is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamedbut, for the Reader, coming along into the life of Credence Barebone is a more than magical occurrence.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully you overlooked my shitty summary, and read on to read the fic. I should know by now, that when I bring my homework and laptop to the library, I'll always end up writing fanfic.

The first time you see Credence, his mother had called you a witch, and the crowd of No-Maj’s had descended upon you like healthy cells attacking the infected one. You wished it was a mistake, that they had seen a mole on your face, a stutter, a small limp, and cried wolf, but alas. You were a witch, a half-blood from the family of _______, with ancestors originally coming from Wales. You had been a lucky child, having gone off to Ilvermorny with the rest of your magic-blooded peers, learning the best you could about the world around you, the world you lived in. But perhaps, when after the mob had left you laying in the gutter, your dress in tatters, shoulder cloak soaked in sewer mud, when Credence Barebone, adopted son to Mrs. Barebone, that you were not magic in the slightest.

But life is what life is, and you were a witch in love with a no-maj, and that was what it was.

The second time you see Credence, your dress was not in tatters, and your travelling cloak was left in the big closet where all the other cloaks were, and for one in your life, you weren’t thinking about the pennies you were scraping by to keep going, or the fact that your father was doing poorly. For a dancing hall is still a dancing hall, and perhaps in the era you lived in, dancing was purely a fun, frivolous activity you allowed yourself to live.

Credence was sitting by the door, knees knocking, watching his sisters sway together to a modest tune their mother would approve on. His small hat was left at home, feet crossed at the ankles, eyes keen on Modesty, and Chastity, almost hoping they wouldn’t stray too far from his gaze. You could not help it; your family had raised you to be a gracious witch, to pay debts even if there was seemingly nothing to pay.

So, you walked toward him, threading yourself between the couples on the dancefloor who were ebbing forward and back to the thrumming of the cello, toward the darkhaired young man who had encapsulated your thoughts.

“Thank you for helping me up,” you look to his eyes, seeing the colour as deep as a bottomless pool. “I know it’s a little forward for women to do this, but…can I repay you with a dance?” His eyes widened, glancing toward his sisters, and you nod. “I know you’re watching them, it’s nice of your mother to let you bring them out.”

His smile is small as he asks you, “Are you here with someone?”

You shake your head, and whisper into this silence between the songs, whisper into his ear, “I’m not. My family think I’m in my room, asleep above their heads.” You bite your lip. “You don’t have to dance if you don’t –,”

Credence doesn’t look to his sisters as he speaks; instead, he looks to you, and his face is not as solemn as it has been, and for a moment you swear you can feel the gift of your family flowing in you, because in the young man before you, you can see a perfect little future.

The third time you see Credence, it is so late that it is hard to see your own hand before your face, and the gas lamps have been turned off for the night in the streets to preserve the gas the city spends on its citizens. But nonetheless, the form beside you on the steps to his home is Credence, and his palms are sticky with blood, and roped with thick welts from being smacked with his own belt.

If you were not a witch, you would mind your own business, perhaps take him home if you felt plucky, and bandage his wounds like anyone would. But you were a witch, and that was what you were primarily in your life. You knew what the congress said about magic around no-maj’s; that they couldn’t stand the complexity of it, the unknown. Credence’s own mother was a radical who condemned magic to its death. But your heart bled alongside his hands, and silently, you whispered the incantations which would heal him.

“What did you say?” he whispered back.

You shook your head, raising your hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I don’t think I said anything, Credence.”

Even though it is dark, and your wand is pocketed deep within your coat, you see a gleam of light weave over his palms, ebbing the blood, uniting the skin once more together. He notices, uncertain. But he isn’t angry, or fearful; not like what you were taught at school, that no-maj people would always lash out against magic. Credence searches your eyes, shakes his head.

“You’re magic, aren’t you?” the words tumble from his lips.

Your face turns pale, as if you’ve died and become a ghost in one sitting. “I – Credence – please don’t tell your mother. She’ll have me killed, and the Congress will condemn me for affiliating with your kind…” you tremble. _Stupid, stupid._ Why didn’t you think with your mind instead of your heart for a change?

Credence shakes his head, nearing his face toward yours. “I won’t tell a soul,” he whispers, “You’re the brightest star in the heavens, ________, I won’t shoot you from the sky for being beautiful.” His voice is low, almost abashed by the pretty words he speaks. “I mean, I –,”

“I like you too, Credence.”

The fourth time you see Credence, you are on your walk home from work at the _Homeless Shelter for Witches and Wizards in Need_ downtown. The sky is darkening with signs of a storm coming, the pavement calling for the pearly clouds to rain hellfire upon them with their need to water all the plants between their cracks. Businessmen rush with their newspapers home, anxiously holding them above their fancy new hats just in case. Mothers dash about with their sons in tow, their daughters nestled upon the hip. The elderly stroll by, aware of the sky’s behaviour, but aged well enough to know of the sky’s needs, and the secrets to returning home without a drop of precipitation upon them.

It’s in a backstreet alley beside the houses and buildings where you see him. He is small in comparison to the figure of Mr. Percival Graves, a high-up figure in the magical government, curved back into the wall where he stands, watching the other man carefully. Your feet stop their movement, or you stop them from walking off without you, but whatever you’ve done, you stay there, swaying slightly in the ghastly breeze, seeing the two men exchange words.

The last time you had seen Credence, he had said words that suggested he did not know magic, but now, you know better. He’s seen it before; that was how he recognised its touch when you cast it. Before he passes a petit necklace to the younger man, Mr. Graves disappears – disapparates, leaving Credence there, gazing at you, through where Mr. Graves had stood.

“_________?” he asks.

You turn, and as fast as your feet can carry you, you run home.

The fourth time you see Credence, it is dark, but not as dark as that night, and you are frightened, but not as frightened as you were the first time you had laid eyes upon him. You had been dragged into the train station, snatched from the sheets you laid within and brought into the underground subway in the middle of the city. Whoever had snatched you had to be powerful; they had placed you in clothes you hadn’t been wearing in a place you had never been.

Before you, Credence cowered in the side of the train tracks, his form low, eyes red. It had been a while since you had seen him, and now, seeing him with the tells of hysteria upon him, you felt like the worst friend in the world.

“Credence?” you reach for him, arm extended.

But before your feet can tread over the stones, he barks. “No! Don’t come near me! _________, don’t come near me, please, I’m a…a freak.”

Your eyes bulge, but before words can form upon your lips, you hear the screeching of feet nearing; sneakers that belong to a ginger-blonde with a blue coat, and a woman with short brown curls, and a pretty hat. A man follows in hot pursuit: Mr. Graves.

“Everyone stay back!” Credence shouts.

But you cannot. You’ve seen this young man for what he is, inside his soul, and whether by freak he means he is a werewolf or even a half centaur, you don’t care one bit. You can’t help it if you love Credence; especially for the love in his forgiving heart, the way he cares for everyone ever so much more than he cares for his own self. And if you cannot help him, well, be damned, you’d be the worst witch in the world.

“I love you Credence,” you feel a tear fall and splatter upon the rocks upon the railway rails. “I can’t just let you do something stupid, because I love you!” you sob, voice wavering with emotion.

But at that moment, something changed. Someone must have cast _accio_ onto you, because you zoomed back, and smacked your head onto the edge of the platform, out dark. When you came to, the man who was Mr. Graves was not him anymore, and Credence was gone, and all you could see was the last of a wisp of black in the air, and the word _obscurial_ stuck in your mind from the Englishman who wouldn’t seem to shut up.

“Credence,” another tear fell, but the only one to see it was the woman accompanying the Englishman, Tina. She wiped your cheeks, and walked you up from the subway, into the rain outside. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

She didn’t say.

The sixth time you see Credence, you were at the docks, thinking about what you could do in the world besides work at the homeless shelter in the city, and be a burden for your parents with their aging pay checks. But when a figure, wearing dark slacks and a coat, tipped his hat and sat beside you upon the edge of the wharf, you couldn’t help but glance to him.

“You – you can’t be real,” you declare, breathless.

He shakes his head, and holding his hat in one hand, he intertwines his fingers within yours. At once, you feel the heat from his fingers, the pulse from his thumb, the beats of sweat upon his palm from the upcoming summer, and know he is real. Not dead. Most certainly and completely alive.

“I survived, ________,” he whispers, glancing to the gulls swarming above in the sky, to the sun which is high, full of possibility for the day ahead. “I saw you, and I couldn’t die. Not when you felt the same way I did for you.” He assured you.

Your lips part, eager to hear. “How?” He lowers his head, the undercut shave growing back in, scruffy like a street boy, with his shy charm, and places a kiss beside your ear which you didn’t quite hear. “I don’t think I said anything, ________.”

You can’t help but smirk. “You’re magic, aren’t you?” you whisper back, remembering that night as if it had just happened the night before. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.” You beam.

Credence’s lips land once more upon your skin, this time upon your own lips. “Let’s get out of the city. Let’s travel. I want to go everywhere in the world with you, the brightest star.”

You lean your head against his shoulder, and murmur back, “I’d be lost without my moon.”

��3f���

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any requests, find me on Tumblr at @susiephalange, or [@phalangewrites](https://phalangewrites.tumblr.com/request_conditions) ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ✿


End file.
